My said U. S. Pat. No. 4,597,203 discloses a system for many uses including snow and leaf removal. It provides a wheel-supported motor-driven fan in a rectilinear housing that has an open front for vacuum intake of material to be blown from a discharge either free of the machine or into a bag.
Snow or leaves can be drawn directly into the open front in a preferred embodiment.
Means are provided also in various embodiments for closing off the open front selectively to perform various specific tasks, one means being a plate that adjusts vertically to modify suction pickup that is from directly below.
In rigorous testing of the snow removal capability of the machine described in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,597,203, I found that it performed perfectly as designed in all respects except that light snow of an inch or two (2.5 to 5 cm) depth tended to blow away from the intake under some circumstances.